Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Okay, you all have come up with some interesting scenarios, some closer to the truth than the others. Some of you used the evidence to develop some reasonable good answer and others simply fantasized a scenario that had no real connection to the evidence!

First, what evidence was there?

1) A witness stated they saw a still warmish dead bloody cat in Pat Brown's shower at 10 pm that day, the witness saw a check from Amazon with what appeared to be blood on it, and both were gone the following day at 3 pm.

Although I did tell you there was actually a dead cat in my shower and I showed you a photo of the check with red stuff on it, there is no proof that the witness was accurate about the condition of the cat or that the cat and the check were gone the next day. If you accepted the witness' statement, you accepted certain things that may or may not be true (was the cat really still warm? Did the witness actually touch the cat to find out? What was the extent of the injury to the cat? Did the witness turn the cat over to examine it? Was the red stuff on the check really blood?) Any theory developed based on the witness statement is questionable because we cannot be sure the witness was accurate. For that matter, the witness could be trying to make Pat Brown look bad.

2) Okay, let us say that the witness was reliable and everything the witness stated was true. Next question, whose cat was that orange cat? Guessing that it is Pat Brown's cat or not is just guessing and this guessing can radically change the theory and motive.

Answer; not Pat Brown's cat.

3) Because there was blood on the check, it is guessed that Pat Brown got the check from her mailbox and that is why there is blood on it. Well, that is possible, but the check could have been lying around and just gotten touched. But, okay, it is true that the check had been picked up just before the cat incident. Some of you decided, therefore, that the cat must have been killed in my driveway because I went to the mailbox at my home and that is when it happened. There was an assumption I have a mailbox at my home. There we go with assuming again! Answer: I do NOT have a mailbox at my home. The mail for the residence address is actually delivered to a house about five houses away because my house, at this point in time, does not actually have a different address (long story concerning a large family plot of land that used to be a farm). Where I get my mail is at a UPS box in town (which I also have for business purposes and so that when I travel my mail is in a safe place). I picked up the Amazon check and because I was curious what the dollar total was, I opened it in my car, dropped it on the passenger seat and then drove toward my house.

4) Did I run over the cat? Some thought I did which is why the cat ended up at my home. Some thought I was trying to save it...although I think I would have done better taking the cat straight to an emergency vet place. There is actually no proof that I was the one that hit the cat....was there blood on my tires? We don't know because my car was not checked for that evidence....that kind of evidence has not been reported. So, making a scenario that I killed that cat is based only on what you THINK my motive for carrying the cat back to my house might be....guilt....to save it...whatever. I did not kill the cat.

5) So, I saw a still cat in the road and I pulled over and backed up to check it out. It was dark out, so I put on my flashers and jumped out and picked up the cat which was still warm and soft so I knew it had just been hit. I brought it in my car so I could examine it under the inside light. I grabbed a bunch of papers and cover my seat and then laid the cat on them (unfortunately, I forgot my check was lying there). Once inside the car, I noticed that the cat was beyond help.

Now, HERE is where a motive for bringing the cat home is a bit convoluted and I want you to note that when you subscribe a motive to what people do and say, "Oh, it is clear this is why!" Or "Well, he wouldn't have done THAT!", be careful because you may have no real clue why the person did what they did and the motive you conjure up is more in your head than in the perpetrator's head.

So, why did Pat Brown bring the dead cat home and lay it in her shower? Is she a ghoul? Was she planning on doing an autopsy on the cat? Did she want to take creepy dead cat photos? Did she want to clean it up and give it a proper burial because she is a lover of cats? Unless you have a lot of information on me and my history, you may be completely wrong.

The reason I brought the cat home: no, I did not feel a need for a good cat burial. I normally would have just laid the cat on the side of the road in the bushes. No, I did not want to do weird crime scene stuff with the kitty. What I wondered when I saw the cat in the road and when I examined him in my car was if that cat might actually be my missing cat Rouxy. Rouxy was an orange cat who went missing after I moved in 18 months earlier. This cat was the right color and a male and had Rouxy's tail and color of eyes. I wanted to take the cat home where I could then access my photos and do a comparison because I couldn't remember the exact details of what Rouxy looked like. So I brought the cat in and placed him where it was best to keep a bloody dead cat...on a plastic bag in the shower. I went and found my photos and did the comparison. Turned out, I forgot that Rouxy had white paws and this cat didn't...not my lost cat. In the morning, I took the cat out to the woods and buried it and took the check to deposit in the bank.

So, now look back at your own theory of the crime and ask yourself how much was based on evidence and how much was merely conjecture? This is what happens when you analyze a case on the Internet or by watching TV, when you analyze at a distance and do not have proper access to all the evidence or the ability to question people about things. The more you base your theory on random information and unproven sources, the more likely you are to have a theory that is not at all accurate.

Just because something COULD have happened or someone MAY have done this or someone MAY have had this motive, doesn't make it so. I COULD have run over the cat but there was no proof of it. I COULD have felt guilty over the cat's death but where was the evidence that this is a fact? The cat COULD have been killed on my property but where was the evidence of this? Quite frankly, with the evidence I gave you, the only theory that should have been created from the limited evidence is this:

Based on the fact, Pat Brown herself (and not the witness) told you that there was a dead cat in the shower, Pat Brown or someone else who had access to her house placed a dying or dead cat in her shower.

THAT is actually all you know from the evidence. If your theory included more than this, you didn't base it on the actual facts.

9 comments:

Martin Roberts
said...

Hi Pat

"Based on the fact, Pat Brown herself (and not the witness) told you that there was a dead cat in the shower, Pat Brown or someone else who had access to her house placed a dying or dead cat in her shower."

"THAT is actually all you know from the evidence."

No cheating now..

We also KNEW (from the photographic evidence you supplied) that something resembling blood had stained the cheque, so the envelope that contained it must have been opened beforehand.

We shouldn't be blamed for thinking it was your cat when you thought so yourself. At least you got to see it, although it was dark. We didn't have even a 'mug shot' to go on!

Personally I think 'walking back from a mail box' is a decent approximation to 'driving back from a drop-off somewhere' without prying into your personal circumstances (Maybe I should interrogate Google Earth next time).

Seriously though, your point is made in an entertaining way. I am of the opinion that phrases such as 'could have', 'might have' etc. should be banned from a jury's deliberations!

Yes, it IS true that there was evidence that I removed the check from the envelope but since we don't know that the red stuff was blood or it might have been blood but not cat blood, we don't know that the check was connected to what happened!

You all didn't even KNOW I had had an orange cat and some of you didn't even know I had a cat at all (I still have Ziggy; Worst. Cat. Ever. Rouxy was my favorite cat ever...grrrr...wrong one went missing).

Hmm......just to let you know in case you find me on Google Earth, we are a heavily armed property and we have a big dog....ruff! ::laughs::

Glad you like the post, though, Martin! I have such a hard time getting across to people the difference between an interesting possibility and a theory based on actual evidence. I mean, I could have murdered that cat in my shower (I am sure some of my haters could come up with a good scenario) but I didn't.

And you didn't post an ID photo until the verdict was in. (Objection your honour! That should have come up in disclosure).

Heavily armed, and with a big dog eh? In the presently absurd world of the politically correct, I believe burglars who sustain injury while trespassing on another's property can even sue for damages, hence mandatory signage warning them of barbed wire, electric fences etc., etc.

I wonder about a sign reading 'This property is protected by a small dog - and a baseball bat'? (as recommended by Teddy Roosevelt).

On a more serious note, you could perhaps utilise your idea of illustration as a chapter somewhere (it needn't be the dead cat conundrum). There must be investigations of historical significance that exemplify a methodological approach, as opposed to others where a trick was missed somewhere or other.

It would be interesting to take such an examination a stage further and assess the relative percentages of those cases that culminated in guilty verdicts versus those that did not, and why - unless of course it's been done already.

Pat love your blog and relflected the other night on your thoughts on incompetent jury's after watching the final episode of the people versus OJ. Even though unlike the Stephen Avary case I already knew the verdict I openly wept when they read out not guilty. I have read numerous reviews of the case where the blame for the not guilty was placed on the incompetence of the prosecution, where it was blamed on the egotism of the judge, where it was blamed on the decetfullness of the defence. I clearly place the blame on an incompetent star struck jury and the salute at the end by the black male jury said it all

Anon 12:38 I did post a comment of congratulations to Gonçalo on Facebook. As to my book, Goncalo's win has nothing to do with Amazon being willing to risk a lawsuit on a self-published book. Yes, it did make them some money, but nothing worth putting their neck out to be chopped off.

Thought-provoking stuff as usual... which by association made us wonder if you still have in mind to write (with G. Amaral) that definitive hardbound on Madeleine McCann's demise - for sceptics and die hards alike ...

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By Pat Brown

"Killing for Sport is the most valuable insight into the minds of serial killers that you will ever read. While other profilers tend to conceal the clear facts behind complex technical language and psychobabble. Pat Brown actually tells it like it is."